• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

In after Baud. Damn.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Dominance Displays Among the GOP Hardcore

Dominance Displays Among the GOP Hardcore

by Anne Laurie|  April 17, 201410:58 pm| 19 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Excellent Links, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Decline and Fall

FacebookTweetEmail

#GOPScamPAC RT @AaronBlakeWP: The Draft Ben Carson super PAC raised $2.4m last quarter. Spent $2.2m on fundraising. http://t.co/mn69shtY2A

— Brad Friedman (@TheBradBlog) April 17, 2014

Jane Goodall explained for us, fifty years ago, how a crafty primate could use the simple tools at hand to increase his noise-producing capacity, and thereby his social dominance in the local tribe. Molly Ball, at the Atlantic, reports on the simple tools heartland patriots of last weekend’s Freedom Summit:

Ted Cruz Is Beating Rand Paul in the Tea Party Primary
… Saturday’s Freedom Summit, billed as an early audition for potential 2016 candidates, provided a rare opportunity for right-wing activists to directly compare the Texan and the Kentuckian. The senators spoke practically back to back, and the crowd clearly loved them both. But Cruz’s theatrical delivery wowed them more than Paul’s comparatively cerebral appeal, and his rhetorical focus on conservative red meat found more favor than Paul’s detours into libertarian concerns….

Both headlined weekend events with the New Hampshire Republican Party in addition to appearing at the summit, which was sponsored by Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity. (Yes, the Supreme Court plaintiff that helped deregulate campaign finance and the Koch Brothers’ political nonprofit collaborated—a liberal conspiracy theory come to life.) Cruz finished his speech by asking audience members to subscribe to text-message alerts for his “movement,” a tech-savvy means of building a list of grassroots supporters…

…[T]he decidedly Tea Party crowd also gave a warm welcome to right-wing gadfly Donald Trump and talk-radio host Mike Huckabee, both of whom are also flirting with presidential runs. Potential candidates with more establishment appeal, such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, were not on the schedule; Trump castigated Bush for his sympathetic view of illegal immigrants, and multiple speakers, including Cruz, bashed the Common Core educational standards, which Bush vocally supports. Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator now running in New Hampshire, also declined to appear at the event…

(Rude aside from a Masshole: Cosmo Boy Brown knows his appeal, such as it is, lies with the ‘moderates’ of what used to be called the Establishment GOP. He’s too lazy to go full-metal anklebiter with the True Believers, especially if he can make just as nice a living touring the country-club luncheons to View with Alarum and deplore the death of bipartisanship, as was in the glory days of Ike and ‘Poppy’ Bush.)

“If you want to grow the movement, we cannot be the party of fat cats, rich people, and Wall Street,” [Paul] said. Paul went on to argue against indefinite detention, to mock Justice Department terrorist profiling, and to argue for more lenient sentences for marijuana dealing—nontraditional conservative subjects that seemed to perplex the audience.

Cruz, on the other hand, told the crowd only what he knew it wanted to hear. His speech, unlike Paul’s, was infused with personality, beginning with cute stories about his young daughters. Of his defiant five-year-old, Caroline, who likes to play a game she calls “attack the Daddy,” he mused that she must be taking her cues from Senate Republican leadership…

I agree that we, as Democrats, should be focused on turnout for our candidates in 2014. But the more noise the biggest fools in the GOP make promoting their wide range of grifters, Talibangelicals, and crazies, the better the contrast we can draw for the proverbial low-information voters this year.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Guantanamo & the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
Next Post: Who Fucking Cares? »

Reader Interactions

19Comments

  1. 1.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 17, 2014 at 11:02 pm

    If any of this involves mounting as a dominance display, I will be very cross with you. I do need to get some sleep tonight and those mental images will banish sleep forever.

  2. 2.

    mclaren

    April 17, 2014 at 11:04 pm

    Classic title, Anne. You have outdone yourself.

  3. 3.

    Suffern ACE

    April 17, 2014 at 11:04 pm

    I am having dinner with friends in the city on Saturday. If any Democratic candidates for office would like to attend, they can as I am billing it as a preview of the 2016 primary landscape. And if they buy me a drink, they win my straw poll.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    April 17, 2014 at 11:07 pm

    Go, Caroline, go!

  5. 5.

    maeve

    April 17, 2014 at 11:12 pm

    Somehow I’m on a right-wing mailing list that thinks I have money to donate (not that I have a lot of money – it’s so weird i think that someone transcribing from federal records accidentally transposed “democrat” and “republican”) – I’ve been invited to join special elite “Inner Circle” groups (by donating a couple thou) and received mailings not only from Michelle Bachman but also from some potential congress person from California that was basically campaigning against FDR – I felt like replying I really supported him but I’m on Social Security and a limited income- so sorry).

    Anyway I got a mailing a while ago that was all about “Carson will win because he’s guaranteed to win 40% of the “nee-grow” vote, and we all know that is needed to win these days”.

  6. 6.

    mai naem

    April 17, 2014 at 11:15 pm

    @Suffern ACE: Wrong party. It’s the GOP who’ll buy your vote. The Dems will beg for your vote.

  7. 7.

    jl

    April 17, 2014 at 11:20 pm

    ” Saturday’s Freedom Summit, billed as an early audition for potential 2016 candidates, provided a rare opportunity ”

    Wait? What? Wasn’t that CPAC? How many rare opportunities are there to hear crazed reactionary politicians running after a nomination?

    I’m confused now.

  8. 8.

    jl

    April 17, 2014 at 11:24 pm

    And the linked article says that the author found exactly one attendee who preferred Paul, and exactly one who preferred Trump.

    So, that means Trump is one of the major candidates, right? Trump should totally run. That would be totally fun.

    Even I’d watch a debate with Trump in it, just for fun.

    The rest of them… meh… I got my fill of crazy and psychologically maladjusted GOP prez debutantes in 2012.

  9. 9.

    Jay C

    April 17, 2014 at 11:44 pm

    Y’know, it’s all good fun to mercilessly mock these GOP buffoon-circus events, and chortle at the antics of the clowns who are meant to be the main draw(s) – but the depressing reality is that an awful lot of these fools are going to get elected to public office: and many times with huge majorities. Maybe not the Presidency – Thank God we, as a country, still display the occasional fit of sanity on a nationwide level – but enough offices in enough places to be a viable political force. The Teabaggers and their assorted allies may have the political sophistication of furniture, but they all have the same vote (one apiece) as the bluest progressive – AND: they turn out in relevant numbers. Large ones, usually

    .@maeve:

    I really don’t understand the appeal of Dr. Ben Carson to anyone, black or white. It’s weird: he’s obviously an intelligent and well-educated man; but when it comes to political stuff, he comes across as – at best – a driveling simpleton. Does the GOP truly think black voters can’t – or won’t – see through his tiresome shtik? (rhetorical question)

  10. 10.

    ruemara

    April 17, 2014 at 11:50 pm

    I’d like to get them all in the same room and pray for a meteor.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 12:07 am

    @maeve

    Alan Keyes 2.0.

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 18, 2014 at 12:09 am

    @ruemara: DRONEZ!

  13. 13.

    andy

    April 18, 2014 at 12:36 am

    It really says something about an event when Rand Paul is the “cerebral” one.

    TOO MENNY BIG WERDS!

  14. 14.

    Lurking Buffoon

    April 18, 2014 at 1:07 am

    I am shocked, SHOCKED, that these voters who make your standard zombies look like Harvard graduates preferred the asshole who was telling them exactly what they’ve been trained to want to hear! No one could have predicted it!

  15. 15.

    Marc

    April 18, 2014 at 7:51 am

    But Cruz’s theatrical delivery wowed them more than Paul’s comparatively cerebral appeal…

    Never before has one adverb done so much work.

  16. 16.

    kentropic

    April 18, 2014 at 8:39 am

    I remember attending a party in a frathouse basement years ago (yeah, I know, but I lived there, too) and seeing with sudden, blinding clarity how much the scene resembled a Nat. Geographic special on the social and mating habits of a baboon troop — all I needed to complete the picture was a pith helmet & a notebook. The 2000 Brooks Bros. Riot in Florida was the same kinda thing: blunt, primitive. Today almost all my erstwhile frat brothers are deep into the GOP mindset of triumphal victimhood — some things never change.

  17. 17.

    jomike

    April 18, 2014 at 9:25 am

    @Jay C:

    the depressing reality is that an awful lot of these fools are going to get elected to public office: and many times with huge majorities

    Yep… majorities that are completely unaware of the glaring contradictions in their own political beliefs (from the paywalled Austin American Statesman):

    The survey found that Cruz is, as the polling group described him, “the top dog in the state,” with 47 percent of voters approving of him, and 35 percent disapproving. He is also the favored choice of Texas Republicans and independents who say they vote in the Republican primary for the GOP presidential nomination, with 25 percent support, compared with 14 percent for Jeb Bush, 10 percent each for Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Rick Perry, five percent for Chris Christie and Paul Ryan and four percent for Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio.

    …Perhaps the most surprising results of the survey are that, even in conservative Texas, many Texans favor expanding Medicaid, raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing equal pay for equal work

    I’m surprised that a political beat writer is surprised. Tea Partiers and self-professed “independents” profess obviously self-contradictory political beliefs? In Texas? Stop the presses! Poor fella musta just fallen off a turnip truck, or an East Coast journalism school.

  18. 18.

    C.V. Danes

    April 18, 2014 at 11:37 am

    But Cruz’s theatrical delivery wowed them more than Paul’s comparatively cerebral appeal, and his rhetorical focus on conservative red meat found more favor than Paul’s detours into libertarian concerns….

    Note to Paul: you probably don’t want to use cerebral arguments with a group that is purposely non-cerebral. Stick with one syllable words in short sentences and you’ll do much better.

  19. 19.

    Citizen_X

    April 18, 2014 at 11:37 am

    subjects that seemed to perplex the audience

    Like that’s a difficult task.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • Chris on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 10:16am)
  • Chris T. on Monday Morning Open Thread: The Tariff We Pay for Civilization (Apr 15, 2024 @ 10:14am)
  • tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat) on Monday Morning Open Thread: The Tariff We Pay for Civilization (Apr 15, 2024 @ 10:13am)
  • Chris on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 10:13am)
  • Spanky on Campaigns, cash and poorly attached voters (Apr 15, 2024 @ 10:12am)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
Virginia House Races
Four Directions – Montana
Worker Power AZ
Four Directions – Arizona
Four Directions – Nevada

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
Positive Climate News
War in Ukraine
Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
Classified Documents Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Political Action 2024

Postcard Writing Information

Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

Donate

Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!